Please stop!

I’m sure lots of people noticed this blog headline today: “Yoobin of Wondergirls says ‘please stop!'” It caught my eye, although I confess I don’t know who the Wondergirls are. (Yeah, I live here in my own private Idaho in the heart of Europe.) There it said that she has “chunked out” and is tired of being reminded of it. Indeed, who really wants to hear: “Oh, you’ve gained weight!” Even though during the last years of my bulimarexic phase I did look better when I’d gained some weight, and occasionally did get similar feedback, it was meant well and expressed with tact. Yet even those comments took some adjustment on my part.

Being in the public eye is no easy thing. I’ve become more attentive to it over the years. Every so often I read one of those snippy comments about so-and-so having a bit of a tummy. Immediately they speculate: “Is she pregnant?” That is rarely the case.

During the past year, I have been struck by the increasing tone of animosity in the comments. It seems that celebrity journalists get a certain satisfaction out of putting down the objects of their daily bread. It is strange. Is it envy? Or trying to make them seem as human as the rest of us? To be honest, I never doubted that any of them were human. But I don’t think that they deserve to be treated in such a way, with such lack of respect and consideration.

There is a truly vicious aspect to such journalism. The glamour has gone. Instead, there is a lack of courtesy and the main concern is: what sells. That is truly sad. I’ve seen photos of stars who put on some weight, and the captions are simply oozing with gloating nasty comments. My daughter likes to watch MTV and occasionally I’ve seen films showing reporters stalking and hunting celebrities. In my opinion, it is truly insane.

What adds to the insanity is all the photo retouching, plastic surgery, fakeness and expectations of perfection. That makes it even more disastrous to be caught being a “real” person. We all know it’s fake, yet we like to believe they really are so immaculate. Then we see a photo — without makeup, with a few pounds more — and make a big deal out of it.

As far as singers or actresses go, I’m truly not interested in their personal lives. If they act or sing well, that is what I care about. Of course, if they suffer some kind of tragedy and it hits the news, I feel compassion. But I also feel compassion for the no-names who appear in the papers when they suffer bad fortune. It’s human nature to care. However, I really don’t care about their daily life, what the nanny has to say, whether or not their husband or wife is cheating, if they are getting divorced, if they eat and drink too much. I know lots of people who are dealing with one or more of these issues. In fact, I hardly know anyone who doesn’t have some kind of dirty laundry. If it gets aired for the benefit of other people (like advice on how to get the stains out), okay. But just to gloat over their struggles… I don’t go for that.

I know I’m mixing apples and oranges here, but it’s all fruit. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: We do live in a crazy world! But like Arlo Guthrie said — we’re living in a perfect time. Imagine if all those songs about love and peace and making the world a better place came to be true. Then it would be really hard to do something worthwhile. In the world we live in, it doesn’t take much effort to make a difference! So now I think I’ll get back to work and see if I can’t make a little difference somewhere!